Busy month and a playtest

Hello!

Well yes, it's been a month since I last typed up anything, but that's mainly because the last four weekends have been full of events, so I haven't had much free time. Having said that, I have done a few things:

• Added loads more interactions with dialogue in the third area of the game - this area has the most interactions anyway, so I wanted to get as many set up as possible so I could plot out the whole flow of the area
• Got the cutscene sequences in the second area working and fixed loads of bugs with them - more dialogue, NPC movements, camera movements, etc.
• Started to properly set up the UI for the game - this will take some time

The things I still need to do are plenty! I did a playthrough of all three of the initial scenes (you can now play from the beginning to the end of them = alpha! "SHIP IT!") and made two pages of notes on bugs and improvements. Narrow ruled paper too.

And then there are the 'big things' still missing:

• Any kind of finished UI for the data tablets and terminals you find
• A front end
• Any audio other than player walking sounds
• Specific NPC and player animations
• A proper art and lighting pass on the scenes

So I'm happy at least that it's playable, but there are still too many things not done to release any kind of early demo yet. Might have to delay that until the start of next year.

But, at least I have a roadplan and now know exactly what I need to do (my Trello is bursting!) so that will keep me occupied over the holidays :) 

I just wish I could have a few unbroken weeks just to devote to this, as I know most of these tasks aren't huge, and I could crack through half a dozen in a full day... but sadly, the day job calls...

Tony.